Survey and Closing Day

March 8, 2005 Fort Lauderdale

Last week I shopped for a Marine Surveyor. I took a shotgun approached and emailed every NAMS certified surveyor in Southern Florida (about a dozen.) Among the replies, three of them recommended Mike Rhodes. That’s pretty powerful when your competitors recommend you, so I hired Mike.

Mike has 24 years surveying sailboats including numerous Westsails. Mike’s own boat is a dreadnaught 28, a cousin to Westsails and built by Bud Taplin (who built almost all the Westsails).

Al (the owner) and Mike (the surveyor) were both nervous at the start. Al, like an expectant mother, was afraid that Mike would find some blemish, or a critical flaw. Mike was afraid that this live-aboard boat would be full of decades of debris and personal items in every nook.

I, being the novice at this stuff, just watched. Initially, Mike just inventoried all the equipment and didn’t say much. He perked up when we opened the engine compartment where he found everything clean enough to eat off and in good order.

Al sat alone on shore like an expectant father. Soon Mike wanted to go aloft (up the mast ye lubbers) and we got help from Al. Al said that he never saw a surveyor go aloft before. It’s somewhat dangerous and one of Mike’s friends fell last week when the halyard parted.

We had a 10:30 appointment at a boat yard for the haul-out, so we left about 9:00. Al drove while Mike continued to poke around. He thumped the fiberglass all over looking for a thud rather than a thunk. There were none.

We arrived at the boat yard about 10:30 but there was another boat blocking access to the lift. We tried to hold our position in the narrow canal while waiting. It was hard because a front came through, bringing rain and blustery 25 knot winds. I was awed by the yachts of the super rich which lined the boatyards on both sides of the canal being worked on. They were so big and so immaculate. I admired the finish on a 100’ steel trawler, it was navy blue but shone like a mirror. Mike told me that these owners spent $100K per year just on new paint!!!

After a half hour it was our turn and we backed under the lift. Al gave the yard men clear instructions. Forward sling under the middle chainplate and the aft sling under the winches. Most important, they had to tie the two slings together. Tarwathie has a full keel, and there is no flat spot on the bottom. The forward sling could easily slip off when the boat was high up in the air.

The yard men nodded and then went about their business ignoring what Al said. Al bit his tongue and tried to keep silent. Finally, as they were about to lift, Al interfered and insisted that they tie the slings together. The yard guys grumbled but they did what he said.

When Tarwathie was out of the water suspended above us, it only took Mike 5 minutes to see that there were no flaws below the waterline. The paint was fine, there were only two tiny blisters (insignificant) and the grounding plates were the biggest and best that can be bought and in good shape.

I paid the yard their fee, but we weren’t ready to leave. Al had a project in mind. There was one more thing he had to make perfect before parting the boat. Tarwathie has a Max Prop. It is a low tech, but complicated gear arrangement that allows the propeller to feather when sailing and to flip when in reverse. Max props can be adjusted for pitch and that was Al’s project.

Al explained that the tachometer on the engine was bad. When he replaced it with a good one, he found that top RPM was 2,200 RPM instead of 2,700 the old tach said. That’s too slow. It should be 3,000 or more, and the reason had to be a propeller with too much pitch. Al had talked with Max Prop’s president, got explicit instructions on how to change the pitch, and by how much and ordered a spare parts kit.

Al’s glorious plans fell apart when he disassembled the prop and found that it’s adjustments were nothing like he thought they were. That ruined his confidence that he understood the markings and the instructions. If he put it back together wrong, the consequence would have been a lost day and another haul out at his expense. Meanwhile, we were way over our allotted 30 minutes on land, and the boat yard wanted us out of there. Al sweated bullets, but kept his cool and did what he thought right. It took another half our to put back all the allen screws and to secure them with new cotter pins. Al muttered that if he had two more months before the sale was final that he could have perfected more stuff.

As soon as we were done, the yard men hurriedly lowered Tarwathie back into the water and shooed us away. Back in the channel, there was one simple test to see if the propeller was right. Give it full throttle and look at the RPM. Al waited all of three seconds before trying. It worked perfectly, and the RPM are exactly on spec.

About this time, Mike was getting a bit desperate. He hadn’t found anything of significance wrong. He probably feared that I would accuse him of not looking close enough. He popped a surprise question for Al, “When was the last time you cleaned the heat exchanger?” Al said, “two days ago.” Mike said back, “Darn I can’t even ding you on that.”

Mike went back below to poke around more. He called up to Al, “Thank you for preparing the boat for survey.” All debris and belongings had been removed giving Mike easy visual access to everything.

Mike wanted to hoist the sails, even tough I saw them yesterday. He declared them to be in very good shape.

Mike called me below out of earshot of Al. He said, “This boat has a shorter list of flaws than any other 30 year old boat I’ve seen in 24 years of surveying.” I smiled. He complimented Al’s maintenance, and Al’s cleanliness, he complimented me for searching the Westsail market so thoroughly to find this jewel and for choosing a simple boat without the modern gizmos and luxuries that most modern yahoos put onboard. In Mike’s words, Al and I had both done our homework.

The survey over, Al and Mike swapped stories about the boating business, and Mike grilled me about our cruising plans. I think Mike envied us both.

The last step was anticlimactic. Mike departed, I informed Al that he passed with flying colors. He gave a big sigh of relief; and we marched off to the bank to get the bill of sale notarized, I handed over the check and Al deposited it. The deal is done!

On the way back, Al said that he’d probably sleep like a baby tonight. I slept very little last night and probably won’t tonight either. I’m just too excited and tickled about everything. My mind is racing 90 mph.

We set a target of Friday to set sail northward, so we have a couple of days to settle in.

By the way, as I write this, Libby is stowing away our stuff and unpacking. This is her new home too and now it’s her turn to put her personal stamp on it. If she was a dog she’d be marking. She’s not marking but she does appear as happy as a clam.